Transsiberian

It's fun to watch a director grow. One of the most promising filmic evolutions in modern cinema has been that of Brad Anderson. Not familiar with the name? It's not surprising as his three most notable feature films barely scraped by on a limited theatrical release (which is both astonishing and tragic, considering that material.) Even from Session 9 to The Machinist, his craft improved dramatically. After contributing two films to some TV projects (Masters of Horror and Fear Itself) he went on to direct several key episodes of Fringe (including the season 1 finale) and eventually wound up as a producer on the show. In the middle of all this, he somehow found the time to make the brilliantly understated thriller, Transsiberian.

Starring Emily Mortimer, Woody Harrelson and Ben Kingsley, Transsiberian is a testament to suspense. Brad Anderson has achieved levels of the genre that were previously only reachable by Alfred Hitchcock himself. The suspense is paramount in this picture, throughout. It achieves the highest levels of tension without ever resorting to excessive gore like the similarly themed Hostel films. The twists in the narrative are all organic and never feel trite or contrived. The onset of fear in the characters is entirely natural and believable so much so that the audience never doubts the choices made out of necessity of the situation. Anderson has become skillfully proficient in removing the "comfort zone" for an audience, which is integral when tackling the thriller genre. In Session 9, the setting of the dilapidated, dark and crumbling closed down mental institution did the trick, as did Christian Bale's emaciated figure in his follow up, The Machinist. Trannsiberian transcends his previous efforts by removing not one, but multiple comfort zones. Stripping them away from the protagonists, one by one until complete and utter hopelessness is imminent.

Though the true thematic core of Trannsiberian is honesty and truth. It's about the lies we tell our loved ones and the lies we tell ourselves just to get by from day to day. Emily Mortimer sells this idea almost perfectly. As an audience, we understand and sympathize with her need to lie, not out of spite or cruelty, but self preservation as she is the constant victim of circumstance as well as her own past personal demons. Woody Harrelson plays the supportive husband with a hint of a passive aggressive hero complex (manifested in the form of semi-altruistic Christianity,) a departure from most of the roles he's taken recently, but he executes it with style and ease. Ben Kingsley adds yet another nationality to his ever expanding repertoire as the Russian detective that's sniffing about the traveling couple (so far we've seen Kingsley chameleonize to Hindu, Middle Eastern, Brooklyn and Slavic to scratch the surface of his talent.) Also some markedly admirable performances by Eduardo Noriega (last year's lackluster Vantage Point and Abre Los Ojos, the Spanish original upon which the Cameron Crowe film Vanilla Sky is based) and up-and-comer Kate Mara (most notably seen in 24's fifth season) as the mysteriously friendly yet sketchy couple.

Trannsiberian is possibly the best thriller in the past five years. With Anderson's new and increased duties on Fringe (as he will be returning as producer for the 22 episode second season in the fall,) I hope he still finds the time to put together more theatrical work. Each of his projects to date has been exponentially better than the last and each one markedly different in vision and scope. As long as he remains out of the eye of the major studios, where creative tinkering is at its worst, we can look forward to more top of the line material from Brad Anderson.